California yacht owner sees his stolen vessel wash ashore on TV

March 04, 2013|Reuters

By Ronnie Cohen

SAN FRANCISCO, March 4 (Reuters) - An 82-foot (25-meter)Californian luxury sailboat owner was shocked on Monday toglimpse the vessel on a television newscast beached and bobbingin the surf 20 miles (32 km) down the Pacific Coast from itsSausalito berth.

Two men and a woman found aboard the yacht and first thoughtby authorities to be in need of rescue were arrested onsuspicion of stealing the vessel after its owner calledauthorities to report that the yacht he was seeing on TV washis.

Police say the accused thieves took the boat from itsSausalito anchorage north of the Golden Gate Bridge before dawnand sailed the vessel to the seaside town of Pacifica, south ofSan Francisco, where it washed up on a popular surfing beach.

Pacifica Police Captain Joe Spanheimer said the suspects,Leslie Gardner, 63, Dario Mira, 54, and Lisa Modawell, 56,appeared to have intended to take the Darling on a longer trip.

Sheriffs deputies riding jet skies, a Coast Guard vessel andhelicopter surrounded the sailboat, but the three repeatedlyrebuffed their offers of assistance, he said.

Authorities ultimately coaxed the three off the yacht, andthey were arrested after the boat's owner, John Fruth, who hadwatched the drama unfold on TV, called to report that the boatin question belonged to him and was stolen, police said.

"He was seeing the news media coverage of a vessel that hadrun aground," Sausalito police Sergeant Bill Fraass said. "Theindividuals did not want assistance from the Coast Guard butwere stuck on a vessel that could go nowhere."

The boat, which had been stripped of its main sail, isreportedly valued at $4 million, sleeps up to six people inthree staterooms and is available for charter at $5,000 a day.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that authorities foundbeer and pizza aboard the boat and that its three occupants hadgrown queasy as the waves on the beach bounced them around.

Richard Spindler, publisher of sailing newsletter Latitude38, joked about the caper in a column.

"We can imagine there might be one person dumb enough tothink they could steal a very large and expensive blue-hulledyacht and get away with it - where are you going to hide withsomething so conspicuous?" he wrote. "But three people thatstupid in one place?"